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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29114811">shed your convictions, charge in like a lion</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eissel/pseuds/Eissel'>Eissel</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>my values in another light [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Hogwarts House Sorting, Drabble, Gen, Gryffindor Tracey Davis, Inter-House Politics (Mentioned)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 04:27:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>443</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29114811</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eissel/pseuds/Eissel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In order to be ambitious, you must first be brave. This is the lesson Tracey Davis takes with her to Hogwarts, and the ideal that lands her in the house of the lions instead of the den of snakes.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>my values in another light [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2136156</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>au housing - flash fiction</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>shed your convictions, charge in like a lion</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This rounds out my mini-series of 4 drabbles for resortings, to end it off properly, I decided to do a resort to a house I always resorted from but never to. </p>
<p>Also, Tracey deserved more love from canon, just sayin’. I mean, she’s a half-blood in Slytherin, we don’t get much of those in canon before Voldemort War II, and yet we get practically nada on her. It’s a travesty. Also, I believe that Tracey would probably fit the best in Slytherin, but this was a fun little thought experiment.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>When Tracey sits down at the table, she’s giddy, elated even. She’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>actually </span>
  </em>
  <span>at Hogwarts. Granted, she’s not in Slytherin, her mother’s old house, but she’s sure that her father wouldn’t mind whatever house she ended up in anyways. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s good like that, her father. Very accepting and lenient about the whole “magic” thing, which is something she’s glad she doesn’t have to worry about considering… Well, considering everything else really. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And well, even if her mother </span>
  <em>
    <span>did</span>
  </em>
  <span> mind her going to Gryffindor, and not Slytherin… Well, it’s not like either of them could do anything about it now, for assorted reasons. Not in the least being that Hogwarts doesn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>do</span>
  </em>
  <span> resortings. The older years surround her, friendly in a way she knew they wouldn’t be if she had her mother’s last name instead of her father’s, but hey that’s alright too.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She’s a Gryffindor, a cherished child of the school, blemishes like those would go carefully ignored and unmentioned. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She’s a Gryffindor, a heart bleeding gold and chivalry. A girl who wears a badge of courage on her chest, and speaks up in the face of wrong doing. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s all slightly wrong, but she doesn’t let her discomfort show. Tracey smiles at her upperclassmen, and makes small talk, never once letting the hat’s words cross her mind. Not until she goes to bed, her back drenched in sweat from the games of social politic at dinner. Whoever claimed that Gryffindors were Slytherins weren't had to be willfully ignorant. The opposite of 1 was not 0, but -1 after all.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They pervade her dreams, a mantra that refuses to let her go. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>A brave heart to fling yourself so willingly into the pride, a crafted recklessness in order to disguise true cunning and wit. Yet, even these traits aren’t so much as crafted as they are naturally present. Are you a snake in lion’s hide, or a lion who has convinced herself that she is a snake? </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She wonders what it would have been like in Slytherin, where she would have had to hide a different side of herself. She wonders what it could have been, to have her tie streaked with green and silver, to stare out into the depths of the lake instead of dimly glowing stars above.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Tracey knows that sooner or later, she’ll have to confront this uncertainty. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Will she bleed Gryffindor crimson, honor imbuing itself in her very bones? Or perhaps will she be shackled with Slytherin silver, ambition dogging her every step. Tracey doesn’t know, can’t know until the moment of truth.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But until then, she will at least be content with being a Gryffindor for now.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The original title was something along the lines of "little butterfly, shed your convictions to charge like a lion", as an oblique reference to Zhuangzi's "The Butterfly Dream", since my main play for Tracey was her lack of distinction between what she considers her Slytherin traits and her Gryffindor ones, much like how the theme of The Butterfly Dream is that the distinction between being awake and dreaming is a false dichotomy. I ended up scrapping that title, but you can still find the other reference to the parable within the hat's words to Tracey.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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